


Remanence

by audiopilot



Series: Ferromagnetism [2]
Category: Dead by Daylight (Video Game)
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Animal Death, Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, Gore, M/M, Mating Bond, Obsessive Behavior, Scenting, Size Difference
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-03
Updated: 2019-10-13
Packaged: 2019-11-22 22:47:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 16,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18143060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/audiopilot/pseuds/audiopilot
Summary: Like all things within the entity, the bond between Jake Park and Michael Myers gets twisted into something strange.





	1. Chapter 1

It began with an impulse.

The latest survivor to the group was an older man named Ace who never removed his aviator sunglasses despite it always being night nor his ball cap.  _Likely to hide his balding head_ , Jake thought uncharitably. Dwight thought his card tricks were fascinating and was enthusiastic about their new member, but there was a slickness to him that reminded Jake of his father's work associates. Even the sleazy pick-up lines aimed at the women survivors grated, despite Meg being the only one who seemed annoyed by it.

"Too many wrinkles," Nea shot him down and Ace just laughed.

Worse, he was a beta.

His scent wasn't comforting in the least. Like the gleam of an oil slick on pavement, it stuck to everything he touched. Ace looked right at Jake and Laurie on his arrival and took a long, obvious sniff before sliding down his glasses to wink at them.

Even after he screamed and bled in the trials the same as anyone else, he still acted like the whole thing was an elaborate joke as Dwight explained the rules the group stuck by. It was bizarre. 

The latest trial left Jake with him relatively alone. Meg cleaned her toolkit nearby, picking at the rusty metal scraps with a cleaning cloth in a futile effort to make them more useful. Despite Jake ignoring them both, Ace approached by sprawling next to him by the fire.

"What's with the smell, kid?" Ace asked. He was too close, but edging away would have been admitting weakness, even as his scent rankled. Meg glanced up, brow furrowing. After Ace's attempts to flirt with Claudette, she didn't appear to enjoy his company any more than Jake did.

His resolution to ignore the man dissolved when Ace suddenly leaned closer. Startled, Jake blurted out, "What?"

"It is  _off_ ," Ace brought his hand up flat to wobble it back and forth in the air. A poker chip balanced over the back of his fingers. Jake hadn't even noticed him take it from his pocket. "Someone got a hold of you, but I do  _not_ smell an alpha in the bunch. Is there a rule for that too?"

The directness left Jake opening his mouth only to snap it closed. 

"What is that supposed to mean?" Meg interrupted, tossing her tools back into their box with a loud clang.

Jake stood, ignoring Ace's raised brow as he told Meg, "I'm going for a walk."

"Sorry, sorry," Ace quickly responded, glancing between them. He sounded more amused than apologetic. "I forget Americans are sensitive."

Jake left.

The desire to make that smirk disappear off Ace's face welled up like blood from a fresh wound as he pushed through the tall, dry grass. Jake never had a temper, but something about Ace constantly left him annoyed. It was draining. His thoughts went calculative as he considered ways to get back at Ace, if only to get the beta to leave him alone. Sabotaging him during a trial would be so easy. He had seen it happen so many times just by accident. He could easily picture that shock steal away Ace's smug demeanor. How it would twist into pain as he was caught and thrown on a hook.

It would be even more satisfying if Ace knew Jake had been the one to make him suffer. Betrayal and confusion twisting his features as the entity absorbed him within its claws.

_What?_

Jake froze. He blinked hard, feeling as if he was waking from a dream. Had he just been thinking about intentionally getting another survivor killed?

"Wait up! I'll come with you."

Meg jogged up from behind him, and Jake quickly focused on her to distract himself from the disturbing fantasy that still lingered. She straightened the button-down shirt she wore over her usual exercise top. As it was Claudette's, it was a little too tight to button, left to hang open except for where she had tied the ends together over her stomach. The two had recently begun to swap clothes with the excuse of tiring of wearing the same thing every day. Not that they ever borrowed anyone else's things. Jake could see the appeal of it: some small way to stay connected.

"That guy can be a jerk, but don't let him get to you."

Jake shrugged. He didn't want to talk about it in case she wanted to ask what Ace actually meant by his comment.

"We haven't done this in a long time," she continued. It was true. They had started scavenging together back when Meg was too nervous about being alone deeper in the woods but wanted to go for runs. Even as time and experience made her more confident, they had continued the ritual. No longer stuck in that awful cycle of oncoming heat, Jake had stopped avoiding the others but hadn't resumed exploring the forest.

Sometimes he felt like he was being watched whenever he had to go through it in the aftermath of a trial. Avoiding Ace had made him forget, but now the paranoia returned as strong as if he'd dropped into a trial. He wanted to look around to try and spot who the killer was, even though it was impossible that any could find them here.

Not that they weren't always under the entity's watching eye, but it felt different. Like someone was looking over his shoulder. 

"What are you looking for?" Meg asked.

Jake bit down on his instinctual retort of "no one."

"More gauze and sutures," he responded instead. His medical kit was almost empty as he kept using whatever he had to dress the bite wound on his neck.

It hadn't healed like every other injury, no matter how many trials had passed since his last one with Myers. Not even a gel dressing calmed the inflamed skin, which felt hot to the touch. He kept it covered by bandages and his scarf pulled up high around his neck to escape anyone noticing.

What it meant, Jake hadn't a clue. Either the entity had left it on purpose, or it couldn't erase it with the rest of his injuries as usual. Either option left a sense of foreboding that it meant nothing good.

"Well, I found this key, but I think it's broken. It didn't do anything last time. Anything that works would be nice."

"Maybe you have to combine it with something?" Jake guessed. He stopped looking through the trees for a source of the odd sensation and began to search for items on the ground.

Figuring our how items worked was trial and error. Literally. Sometimes they were logical, but other times they made no sense at all. Jake still had a jar of jelly-like substance that he didn't know what do with. 

"Claudette thinks it will unlock something," Meg said. "I tried it on some doors last time we were in, uh, Laurie called it Lampkin Lane? But no luck."

They had come up with their own names for the different settings they were forced to survive through. Whether it was a junk yard, farm, or industrial estate, they were all ruins. The most recent iteration was a bog full of rotting trees and wooden buildings. Lampkin Lane must have meant Myers and Laurie's shadowy neighborhood. Jake hadn't returned there since his heat, when he'd spent what felt like hours getting fucked until he'd passed out and woke up on the other side of the exit gate, spotless but for the mark of Myers' teeth.

The wound flared hot at the reminder.

Something red shone out from where the thicket grew sparse. Jake crouched and examined what looked like a translucent rock. Black veins ran through it. Jake interpreted a little loop on the end of it as a sign to attach it to another item. 

"I found a light bulb," Meg said, holding up a tiny, round glass bulb. She frowned. "I don't have a flashlight."

"This might be for you," Jake responded, holding out his find. The thing felt malignant in his hand, warm like something alive. Or as if it had just dropped from someone else's hand.

She took out her key and tried attaching it to the rock. They fit together perfectly. She bit her lower lip as she glanced back up at him. "Are you sure I can have it?"

Jake shrugged. "What do I need a key for?"

“Thanks.”

They spent the rest of their time picking through the grass for more items until they crossed paths with the returning group of survivors. That all four were together either meant the trial's outcome had been successful or gone horribly wrong. 

“Meg!” Claudette smiled and the two embraced. “What are you two doing out here?”

Meg showed off her key and the others began to speculate with interest what it could unlock.

“Maybe it can open the hatch right away.”

“Yeah right.”

“Make sure you use it when I’m around!”

The six of them headed for the fire together, Dwight in the lead as Jake dropped back to walk with Laurie. With another survivor showing up so quickly and several trials back to back, they hadn’t been able to talk much. With the bite mark burning under his skin, Jake hadn't been in any hurry to either.

“How did the trial go?”

“It was that new one. The swamp-mummy thing.”

“Looks like a hag,” Nea said over her shoulder where she walked in front of them.

“Whatever it is, it’s bad at chasing us. We all got away.”

“Enjoy it while it lasts,” Jake advised. “It was like that with the nurse at first.”

“Odd,” Laurie tipped her head back to watch the tops of the trees passing over their heads, deep in thought. “They have to learn how this works too?”

Jake considered the question. Except for the killers who always existed here as far as he could tell, the only ones he had observed starting out were the nurse and Myers. One had definitely seemed to get better at killing them over time and the other had practice before he even arrived. He hadn’t considered the killers would have to learn the rules of the entity just as the survivors did. Jake assumed the entity favored them, but it did make sense that it would be as cruel in throwing them into trials blind as it did new survivors.

The crazy idea of asking Myers popped in his head and he almost laughed. As if he could just casually chat with the alpha and get an answer.

“What are you smiling about?”

“I’m not." Jake rubbed as his mouth.

“Sure,” she said sarcastically. The humor bled out of her face as she watched him from the corner of her eye.

They were both going slowly enough that they soon lost sight of Nea’s back between the trees and mist.

“What happened?” Laurie’s question was soft as she crossed her arms and faced him. Bracing herself for his answer. "Your last trial with Michael. You were gone for a long time."

Jake swallowed. He felt nervous, like when he was a kid and caught out of place by one of his caretakers. Her penetrating stare roved across his face.

Silently, Jake unveiled his neck, scarf slung over his shoulders and the bandage unraveling as he showed her the bite that covered nearly the entire side of it. The air stung as it hit the mark.

Laurie winced as if it hurt her too.

“You didn't..." she shook her head before sighing. "What does this mean?"

"Eventually it will go away," Jake explained with more confidence than he actually felt. "For now it means he probably won't kill me."

"Probably?"

Jake coughed. He struggled to come up with the right words, but his expression must have been revealing enough as realization stole across hers.

"Oh," she said. Her face went pink before she looked back down at the mark. She murmured, "I’ve only seen them in movies. Is it supposed to look like that?”

“I can’t even see it,” Jake admitted. Without mirrors, he only had a mental approximation of the size from the ache of it and gingerly tracing the edges with his fingers. His mother had kept hers covered at all times, but she had shown him the faint scar once after he first presented. She never acted like it pained her. Not that he would have been able to tell if it had. She had stoicism down to an art.

"It looks infected," she said. "Does it hurt?"

"Not that much."

“Can I touch it?”

Jake stared.

“Sorry,” she said quickly looking away, face almost red now. "Let’s go back."

“… fine.”

Jake angled his head to the side as Laurie tentatively reached out. They were close enough in height that she didn't have to stretch too far for her fingertips to brush against the raised edge of the mark.

Her touch was like static and they both jumped at the little jolt to their nerves. Similar to being shocked by a generator, his skin tingled all over as every hair on his body stood up.

“What was that?” Laurie asked, rubbing at her fingers.

“I don’t know.”

He resisted touching his neck as the ache mutated into an angry throbbing. Jake carefully covered the mark again.

Heart pounding, he shoved his hands in his jacket pockets and made them into fists at the urge to lash out. Her beta scent was cloying, he realized, unpleasant instead of sweetly calming like usual.

Suddenly, he knew they weren't alone. 

Jake stared out into the surrounding trees, expecting to see a face staring back at him.

There was nothing. 

"What's wrong?" Laurie quickly asked, looking around in alarm.

"Nothing," Jake whispered, mouth dry. He couldn't shake it, every instinct certain that they were being watched. He even squinted to see if the wavering outline of the wraith was approaching, but the mist lazily drifted without being pulled by anyone's movement.

Was it the bond? 

They weren't supposed to work like that. An old and outdated practice to control heats that had given way to supressives, they were only temporary connections that unraveled after a heat ended. The only thing the mark was supposed to do was leave a scar that left his future heats mild and controllable. 

"Jake?"

"We should go back now," Jake said, waving Laurie to follow. She did without protest. He wanted to ask if she could feel it too, but she ignored their surroundings to worriedly stare as he looked over his shoulder for the third time. She was reacting to him, not to the sense of wrongness that was creeping through the woods in their wake. 

Soft whispering made him jump. It seemed to come from every direction to fill his ears with words he couldn't comprehend. The sound traveled deep into his ear canals, which ached like frozen air was blowing hard down into them. Then they began to itch. Jake rubbed at the side of his skull behind one of his ears, unable to sooth the distressing sensation. Warmth leaked out on one side.

"Do you hear that?" he asked Laurie. He wiped at the wetness. His glove was stained red.

"Hear what?" Laurie asked, her voice sounding too faraway from how close she stood. 

"I think..." Jake was unable to finish as, with the suddenness of an overblown bubble bursting, he was swallowed by the entity's summons for a trial.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (~˘▾˘)~ ❀more a/b/o silliness❀


	2. Chapter 2

The first thing Jake noticed was the mud. It made the ground slippery and caked to his boots as he pushed past a host of cattails tall enough to hide inside. A swamp stretched into thick mist, trees rising with branches bare of anything green making dark silhouettes that pierced the overcast sky. Jake walked beside a fallen log, noting a depressed area he could hop over before he was distracted by a large structure ahead.

It was a ship beached, boards warped by age and discolored by mildew, half sunk within the damp earth. Perched about it were more black birds than Jake had ever seen, their small and dark bodies unnaturally still. Curiosity had Jake approaching. It had two levels full of stacked barrels and upright pallets. Their familiar, colorfully painted wood was bright amid the dirty surroundings.

The sense that he was being watched had disappeared, replaced by the more routine suspense of waiting to see who the chosen killer found first. Jake looked around before getting any closer, aware it could the newest one— the hag as Nea called her— and he had yet to face her. He knew she could lay traps on the ground, but he had no idea what they looked like in person. Nothing appeared out of place. He reached into his pockets and felt the screwdriver Laurie had given him a few trials back but nothing else. If he got hurt, then he would have to find someone else to help.

He froze as his next step alerted the birds overhead. They took flight all at once, screeching so loud it echoed across the area like a warning siren.

 _Shit_. Jake turned back around. Even within the cover of the cattails and trees, it was a temporary safety until he could pin the killer's location. The middle area was wide open, letting him see almost clear across to the other side where the shack that was in all trials was located. Well, not all, Lampkin Lane didn't have one.

The indirect reminder of Myers made an odd shiver trickle down his spine.

Again, he felt eyes on him.

Jake sunk lower into the cover of the cattails, but his heart beat slow and steady. He didn't trust it and stayed hunkered as he scanned the landscape. He waited long enough that someone finished a generator. Only then did he tentatively wander towards his own nearby generator. 

He worked as quickly as safety allowed, knowing he had already wasted time, but he couldn't shake the certainty that someone was staring at him and kept glancing around. Progress was slow. Too slow, as the generator smoked at odd intervals and electricity arced around the machine. Jake retracted his hands and waited until it fell back into its regular whine. It must be the ruinous power the others had mentioned that slowed generators from working. Nea had briefly explained that destroying totems was the only way to stop it. She described them as obvious: a stack of bones with lit candles burning underneath.

Easy enough to spot, Jake thought, as he ventured around the area in search of it.

He found one easily, but the candle wicks weren't burning. He dismantled it, the triangular formation breaking apart with a loud crack. One of the skulls rolled face up, empty eyes peering up at him. 

The mark throbbed again. Jake pressed down on it in a half-hearted attempt to sooth the ache before traveling back to the generator he'd half-finished. It was sparking from a destructive hit so at least he had avoided the killer's notice. Best to finish it up and power through than waste further time, even if it was annoying. Jake always found it easier to pull things apart than fix them. It was exciting, racing to dismantle a trap or hook without the killer noticing. Generators were dull work in comparison, but it was what they had to do to escape a trial. 

Concentrating hard to not set off the negative effect, Jake was surprised when Meg ran up to him, sliding to a stop in the mud. 

"Hi," she whispered and then smirked at how close the generator was to being finished as she joined him. "Nice. There's one almost done by the shack, but the hag is hanging around it."

"Are there more near it?" Jake asked. At least he had confirmation of who they were facing. 

"Yeah," Meg said, scratching the side of her face as she pulled on a clump of wiring. She left a faint smear of mud behind on her cheek. "There's one by the gate and one on the dock."

Jake nodded. Sometimes the entity placed generators close together and, if they weren't careful in those they fixed, they could be left with three very close together. It made it easy for the killer to keep them from finishing one more, dragging out the trial until they'd attempt to have a survivor or two play distraction while the rest could finish a generator. They would have to finish one of them.

The generator turned on and they split up with a whispered plan, Jake following the perimeter to the other side of the swamp where the three machines were clumped together. He leaned around a tree to see the area clear. Near the ship, someone cried out as they were hit, only for someone else to shout right after. Both male voices, which made the rest of the team Dwight and Ace. Jake sighed and approached a generator when he spotted something on the ground. It was a symbol standing out in the mud as a roughly drawn triangle.

Jake crouched down to examine it as he got closer, but nothing prompted him to destroy it. As he stood, a flash of light and sudden spike of terror froze him in place as the new killer appeared right on top of him.

The body was shrunken, the skin flayed to reveal ropy muscle turned dark with decay. Scraps of clothing still clung to the sharp, exposed points of her hipbones and shoulders, but what was exposed didn't even register as nudity. It was hard to even tell she was a woman besides the hair piled high on her head and the swell of her chest. Her shape was so malformed she seemed more a corpse dredged up from the bottom of the swamp than human.

The wet gurgling coming from her throat grew louder as her sunken eye sockets focused on him. They stared at one another, Jake's heart fluttering with the urge to run even as he was paralyzed. One of her hands was twisted into long, sharp claws that twitched as she slunk forwards. Jake edged around a pile of scrap metal and wood. All he had to do was evade her long enough that she lost track of him, based on what Laurie had said. And avoid any more traps.

Jake ran through the shack, his boots against the wooden floor echoed by the slap of her bare feet. He shifted his weight back and slid down the hill so fast the momentum gave him a head start to run for the nearby dock. He checked behind to see her scrambling after him. Ducking underneath it, he ran through a maze of wooden pillars and walls. Mind racing, Jake went for a window and glanced back as he hopped it.

She was too close. His vault turned into a fall as he flung himself away from the frame.

Smacking the wood instead of his back, she hissed at her miss while Jake stood and debated using the walls to avoid her or gaining distance. She chose to crawl over after him and Jake went for the top of the dock. Another generator went off as he weaved behind a pallet and crouched, waiting to see if she would follow. The hag hesitated, head swinging between the dock and the lit generator. The indecision allowed Jake to leap back down into the mud on the other side and race away into the cattails. He circled a tree before slowing to hide behind a large boulder nearest the wall.

The crow on top of it noticed him but stayed silent. At least that hadn't changed.

She scrambled past, wet gasps loud as Jake held his own breath. His heartbeat slowed, the familiar signal that he had successfully evaded her. He sighed in a controlled exhale that was interrupted by a crack of thunder so loud it vibrated in his chest. The sound trailed off as another generator was done.

When she didn't return, Jake went back to the dock where the generator sat untouched. With a pallet, locker, and stacks of barrels, he had options to escape if she returned. The view was better as well. He could see the layout of the entire swamp. Through the mist the large ship was visible on the opposite corner and in between was an open spread of grass and fallen trees. A smaller tugboat was submerged in the mud to his right and the shack sat to his left where the trees grew almost on top of each other. He stared into the distance, catching movement, and tried to puzzle out if it was another survivor or the hag. 

He had just decided it had to be a survivor from the way they moved when something pressed down hard behind him. Gasping, Jake struggled and fell away from the generator as he went sideways to avoid a hit. Nothing happened.

Jake swung around. There was no one, only a faint wisp of mist swirling from where his sudden movement had displaced the air. He felt at his neck and his scarf was still in place, but the skin on the back of his neck still tingled from the phantom touch.

What was that? Some sort of power of the hag's? Jake reached out to work on the generator again, tense as he waited for another attack, but he was able to finish it without incident. The faint hope that the trial would end without anyone sacrificed was buoyed by the blare of the gates unlocking.

The mark ached as he opened an exit. He couldn't look away from his own hand on the lever bathed in red light. He had seen it hundreds, if not thousands, of times before but the sight was abruptly unfamiliar. The gears within the lock groaned as the second bulb lit up.

Jake tensed as he heard someone running towards him. At first, he couldn't look, but he only had a split second to panic before he was able to turn his head. Through the mist, Dwight appeared. Bandages covered a wound on his arm and sweat covered his face, but he smiled and nodded before playing lookout from behind a tree.

Ace's scream nearby competed with the racket of the gate sliding open, and Jake and Dwight watched as his shadow was dragged to a hook. He was close but still a fair distance from them.

With Meg still out there, it was likely she would go for the save. Would the hag stick close to the hooked survivor or come to the gate? If all three of them went for Ace she would have a hard time stopping them. 

"Let's go," Dwight pointed and Jake silently followed. When they were close enough, Ace's form hanging limply on a hook was clear amidst the surrounding trees and thick grass. The hag wasn't visible, but that didn't mean she wasn't watching from nearby for them to set off a trap. They wouldn't be easy to spot in the thick grass. Dwight crouched as he slowly made his way to the hook. Too bad Nea wasn't with them, she was able to move unnaturally fast while staying low to the ground.

Jake stopped walking as he caught a glimpse of Ace's face. 

All thought fled as a huge hand settled on the back of his neck. Fingers dug into the soft spots behind his jaw when he jumped, forcing him to keep staring at Ace.

He was transfixed by the hurt etched on it, on the spread of blood from his shoulder and the soft grunts of pain, on the way it seemed _right_. 

Then Meg ran right up to Ace, setting off three traps in a row, and Jake trembled as the touch dissolved. He knew if he turned around there would be no sign of anyone else. 

The hag appeared in triplicate with flashes of light and Meg veered away. She wouldn't be fast enough to get away. Jake ran in as Dwight unhooked Ace. Two of the hags disappeared as the third lunged for Meg, the swipe tearing apart the back of her shirt open. Meg cried out in pain and Jake jumped between them. He blocked the next swipe with his own body and bit his tongue as one of those claws pierced his bicep. The hag was so close he could nearly feel the wet rattling in her chest as she used her other hand to yank at his jacket and pulled him close.

Her clawed hand drew back, readying to hit him again.

White noise filled his ears.

 _Destroy_ , it demanded.

Jake grabbed the screwdriver from his pocket and jammed it as hard as he could in one of her eyes.

The hag shrieked, knocking Jake away as the blow went wide and glanced off his shoulder. He spun, catching himself before he fell. When he focused on her again, she was grasping at the tool sticking out of her face as dark blood ran down her gnarled cheek. When she pulled it free, more followed to flow down and into her lip-less mouth and over her sharp teeth. She hissed at him in clear anger and threw it into the grass.

Jake wasn't afraid at all. He had torn things apart with his bare hands before, hadn't he? 

Instead of lunging at him, she took a small step closer and continued her angry, garbled noises. The blood was going past her narrow chin now, drops of it pattering into the mud. He might have continued to just stand there and watch her bleed if Dwight hadn't shouted his name.

It woke him up. Newfound confidence was washed away in a flood of alarm as he realized she was almost within striking range. What the hell was he thinking?

The hag crouched, ready to pounce.

Jake ran.

He could hear her follow as he made it to the exit. The wind of her last swipe at him ruffled the hair on the back of his head as he stepped across the threshold and stumbled into the empty field at the edge of the woods with Dwight beside him. Dwight gave a big sigh of relief, grinning. He seemed to take everyone not making it out personally. 

"... never get used to that," Ace was muttering as he rubbed at his healed shoulder. Meg stood beside him, arms crossed over her chest.

"Sorry," she frowned. "I thought I could move fast enough."

"We made it," Dwight deflected, "That's what matters, right?"

Jake ignored them and walked the path back to the campfire. He felt their stares on his back, but it was minor compared to the gaze pressing down on him from all sides. It wasn't coming from behind a tree, he'd realized, wasn't anything physical he could point out to anyone else. 

It was inside of him.

Back at the fire, he immediately went to Laurie. Her calming scent enveloped him, made his heart's pounding slow from the frantic beating that had yet to stop since the trial's end.

"Can we talk?" he asked her, tilting his head towards the cover of the trees. She nodded.

"What is it?" she prompted when they were far enough away that the murmurs of the other survivors talking drifted into nothing.

"That strike you showed us," Jake began. "Can you stab them wherever you want?"

"No. I've tried, but I can only hit them in the same place."

He flexed his empty hands into fists and buried them in his now empty pockets. The screwdriver was lost in the fog of the trial. The sinking feeling that followed him since the end of the trial grew heavy, a rock in the pit of his stomach. 

"Why?" Laurie asked, "Can you?"

"I did. In the face."

Laurie's eyebrows rose and a wry smile pulled her mouth sideways. It slipped off her face when he didn't say anything else.

"That's a bad thing?"

Jake stared at his shoes. The mud was gone though they were still covered in the usual grime. He flattened a patch of grass with his foot before, quietly, admitting, "I don't think  _I_ did it."

Silence. Jake touched his neck, where the mark's low-grade burn reminded him it had yet to disappear as the cut on his arm had.

"You don't think..." she finally replied, only to trail off and shake her head. Her scent turned acidic as uncertainty strained her next words. "How is that possible."

"It's not."

But it kept happening.

The next trial and the one after, Myers' presence was in his very skin and behind his very eyes. All he did was watch, as if Jake's recognition had him content with only playing voyeur to Jake's survival efforts. If he found his gaze lingering on the chainsaw-torn skin of Nea's back or the deep bite of a trap on Dwight's shin, he was at least able to turn his head away if he tried. The phantom touches didn't happen again.

Eventually, Jake got the courage to try and reach out to Myers. It reasoned Jake could do the same thing, right? Bonds weren't meant to be one-sided.

It was difficult. No matter how hard he thought, no matter what he pictured in his head he couldn't reach anything but himself. All he could see was the campfire, all he could feel was his own thoughts. Like tossing stones into a lake, each one disappearing into the deep without even a ripple to mark where it had landed.

Either Myers could keep him out or it really did only work one way. 

Frustrated, Jake gave up and concentrated on working with the other survivors and sabotaging. Sometimes as he dismantled a trap or hook he would suddenly think of that screwdriver, but otherwise he avoided thinking about the mark. He ignored the creeping of eyes on him that swelled stronger when he didn't acknowledge it. It was easier than he thought and eerily reminiscent of growing up on his family's estate. There, servant's eyes always stayed on him due to his numerous attempts to wander where he wasn't allowed. That, among other things, contributed to Jake running away when he got old enough, but there wasn't anywhere to run here.

He could keep up the disregard when Myers was just a wordless impression in the back of his head, but Jake wasn't sure it would work when he had the actual man in front of him.

It was all uncertainty: with no heat to drive them into each other it logically meant that Myers was free to attack and kill Jake as he did the others, regardless of the mark. History was full of examples where presentations murdered bond-mates, and that was without being marked by an actual serial killer.

There was no plan for their next meeting. He wouldn't be able to throw him off his scent like before when Myers could just see through Jake's own eyes. Jake was best at improvising, staying calm and being quick on his feet to use what he had.

That would have to be enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes on [my tumblr](https://audiopilot.tumblr.com/post/185306416489/remanence-chapter-2-audiopilot-dead-by).


	3. Chapter 3

A trial in the wreckers' yard was always heralded by a whistling wind. As he found himself near a wall made of smashed together car parts, Jake's ears were filled instead with long, drawn howls, like the call and answer of a wolf pack. A new killer or some new method of the entity's? The familiar trial grounds never quite appeared the same, but occasionally they would mutate into entirely new versions of themselves. He suspected it was the entity's way of keeping from them from memorizing their layouts.

The disorienting sound was quickly drowned out by something more disturbing: voices. They layered on top of each other into a distorted echo, the sensation like swallowing gravel.

The whispers rose higher and higher until it was all he could hear. As soon as he thought he recognized a word it slipped away. There was the sense of it taking something from him, of losing a memory while at once reliving it. They were so loud now; he could feel his brain vibrating in his skull. His head ached like an oncoming migraine and the urge to scream just to hear anything else came up like vomit.

"Jake," Claudette's voice silenced the whispers. The only thing he could hear was his own quick pants for breath. She waved a hand in front of his face. In the other, she held a rolled-up map, a newer item that allowed them to track the locations of things within each trial. Claudette had proposed marking each trial's iteration to track patterns, something he was skeptical about. Maybe the voices and howls were the entity's way to faze them. But something about the whispers was familiar... he had heard them before, back in the woods around the campfire.

"What do you think that was?" asked Jake. He didn't realize he was absently rubbing at the mark until he noticed Claudette's eyes track the movement. The green-cast of the faint light shone off her glasses as she checked their surroundings. Behind her, the mist was thicker than usual, obscuring what else may lay beyond the piles of junk. At her obvious confusion he added, "Those sounds?"

"Sounds?" she repeated.

It wasn't that he didn't have the words— when he opened his mouth the explanation died in his throat as he realized it had all been for him alone.

"Thought I heard something," Jake lied, looking away and noticing the overhead light of a generator on the other side of the wall. He pointed and tilted his head towards it in silent invitation. Claudette joined him, mouth gone tight with concern, but didn't voice whatever she was thinking.

On the other side of it was a totem, unlit but grimly out of place. Was the killer the hag again already? Jake ran his tongue across the back of his teeth as he recalled the wet sound the screwdriver had made when he drove it into her eye. He didn't have a thing on him this time, and he wasn't as adept as Laurie at finding what the entity allowed them to weaponize during a trial. Though, since the newest killer's arrival, totems had begun to appear no matter where the trial took place or who with. It didn't automatically mean she was the killer this time. Still, he felt on edge.

A generator was completed far off to their right and they looked in its direction at the same time. That was too fast. How long had he been standing there before Claudette found him?

"It's too quiet," whispered Claudette and Jake nodded. 

They finished their own generator without further event and Claudette scouted out the next one's location as Jake began to break apart the totem. As it went to pieces, someone was pulled off a generator on the opposite end of the yard, their form struggling as they were carried off. Either whoever was caught had been so close to finishing they'd taken the risk to try and repair it at the last second or the killer was devious enough to take them by surprise. There wasn't the tell-tale bell sound of the wraith so that left...

Jake let out a shaky breath.

Numbly, all he could think was,  _but I'm not ready_. It didn't matter.

"I'll go," Claudette rushed back to offer. Jake's agreement became a yelp when a sudden impact knocked him onto his knees. He reached back to feel what had hit him, his shoulder on fire. Claudette was beside him in an instant.

Whoever was being carried escaped as their aura winked out.

"What happened?" Claudette asked, already digging in her pocket for bandages.

"My shoulder," Jake bit out as he struggled to stand. She steadied him as they moved to use the wall of rusting parts as cover. He was gently turned around so Claudette could check his back. She smoothed a hand over his jacket.

"I don't see anything," she said hesitantly, and Jake saw her hand come back un-wet even as his body insisted something had punctured his skin. "Can you take this off?"

Jake unzipped his jacket and winced as he pulled the collar back enough to half-slide his arm out of the sleeve.

Claudette was silent for a long moment. 

"There's nothing," she finally said even as the pain receded as quickly as it appeared.

His skin crawled. He didn't want to consider it, but it had to be the bond. It had to be the cause of the strange whispering too, the timing was too obvious. 

Jake quickly shrugged his jacket back on as Claudette prompted, "Jake?"

She leaned around and her eyes widened when he didn't control his expression fast enough.

"What's going on? Please tell me," Claudette begged and Jake felt terrible  though he knew she wouldn't understand. Even if she believed him, there was no way he was explaining how it all started in the first place. Jake barely understood and he was the one caught in its web.

The injured cry as a survivor was downed saved him from having to lie again.

"I'll get them," blurted Jake and he left before she could reply. He ran between the stacks of car parts with abandon like he was being chased, only slowing as he neared the red-tinted shadow of the other survivor. When he rounded the last car, he recognized Laurie hanging still from a hook, her pained whimpers cutting off when she noticed him. The hook was surrounded by more car-part walls.

She grimaced and shook her head in silent warning. His stomach sank. Myers was nowhere in any sense that Jake could pick up, but that didn't mean he wasn't lurking in close range just out of sight. 

If a killer lingered around a hooked survivor, their agreement was to use the time wisely by completing generators rather than giving the killer a chance to hook someone else. But he wouldn't leave her. From the corner of his eye he saw Meg approaching from a copse of trees. One of them could get her, if Myers was diverted by the other.

Laurie weakly attempted to raise her right arm, mouth moving though he wasn't close enough to hear her words. Jake's head was empty, the absence of any presence stark after weeks of it constantly circling. Walking until he was right under Laurie, he paused when he couldn't catch Myers' scent. There was only Laurie's, tainted by blood and fear. They still had time before the entity lost patience and began to try and devour her.

"He's here!" she whispered an angry protest.

Jake nodded once, thinking fast. A pallet lay just to the left where she had gestured. He leaned around it to check the wall behind the hook.

Myers stood only a foot away.

The mask angled down as he focused on Jake and the bond flared back to life with a brilliance that was nearly physical.

Jake stood as still as possible, every muscle in his body gone tense. Laurie groaned behind him.

 _I can do this_ ,thought Jake,  _I can_.

He used his arms as a shield when Myers moved, too aware of the length of the knife. Myers' pale fingers found his wrist, firm but not painful. It didn't feel gentle; it was dangerous. When Jake attempted to tug free Myers merely held on. The tip of his forefinger found the edge of Jake's sleeve, sliding inside to press against bare skin.

His vision doubled. For the first time since he'd woken in this hell, he saw himself and it was a stranger staring back at him. Covered in grime, the yard's light rendering him haggard and sickly. His mouth was open in surprise, his eyes wide and dark. He saw the twitch of his own hand even as he felt the weight of Myers' knife. Like a fun house mirror, his reflection distorted, focusing on strange details: the bandages visible just under his scarf, the bend of his knee, the flutter of his eyelashes against his skin as the double-vision made him dizzy. 

The moment was broken by the pallet suddenly slamming into Myers. Nails scratched his wrist as they were knocked apart.

"Get Laurie!" Meg said, stuck on the other side with Myers. She darted back between the walls when Myers stabbed at her and Jake lifted Laurie free as he heard the pallet being broken. The moment her feet touched the ground, Laurie was running, dragging Jake along with her though it would have been safer to split up and create multiple targets.

"Are you  _trying_ to get killed?" Laurie demanded as they ran. Jake glanced back, heart leaping as saw Myers following. His methodical approach belied the speed with which he gained on them. Against any logic a tug behind his navel urged him to turn around. It was so strong it was a physical tether that would have wound him back into Myers' radius if Laurie didn't keep pulling him forward.

Meg saved them again, distracting Myers as she ran between them. She cried out as Myers swiftly altered direction and slashed her side with the knife. Jake only stopped watching when he tripped. Laurie's hard grip on his sleeve was the only thing to stop him from tumbling to the ground.

When he checked again Meg was racing in the opposite direction with Myers stalking after her.

They made it almost across the limits of the area before Laurie slowed. They both panted behind a large boulder as Jake hastily patched up her wounds. She didn't make a sound as he pressed down on a long slash to her shoulder, silently staring at him.

"What?" asked Jake.

"What are you doing?"

"Stopping the bleeding."

"Back there," she clarified in frustration. "Were you just going to let him—"

"No," he interrupted. "I had to keep him occupied."

She grunted, falling silent until he finished wrapping the cut.

"I didn't notice it before, but you two smell the same."

 _Someone got a hold of you_ , Ace had said. Did they really smell so alike? Jake couldn't tell, even when he took a deep inhale through his nose.

"We should get out of here as soon as possible," Laurie continued. "Meg brought her key, maybe it will work on the hatch when it appears."

"That means finishing all the gen's, unless..." Jake trailed off, the unsaid  _unless someone dies_ obvious. 

As if summoned by the thought, they were alerted by Claudette's scream as she was attacked. Meg must have escaped.

"I can go back and—"

"No, Meg is closer," Laurie cut him off. "And you need to keep away from Michael."

Easier said than done.

They crept towards the nearby shack where, inside, a generator clunked away. Checking its progress, they found it was barely started. He began repairs as Laurie stood at the window, peering out into the gloom. After a moment she joined him.

They didn't talk. Her irritation made the silence prickly. When it was halfway repaired, Claudette was rescued from the hook. Waiting tensely to see if she would be caught again, or Meg in her place, Jake froze when a cold touch swept along the edges of his awareness.

There were no words, no intent, but somehow Jake knew Myers was searching for him. If he found him, then Laurie would be too. The touch only grew more barbed the more he tried to ignore it. A drop of sweat slid down his face and he used his sleeve to blot it away.

Hands fit over his shoulders, squeezing tight, and Jake stood up fast. He took two steps towards the doorway before he even realized it.

"Where are you going?" Laurie asked.

"Finish this, I'll find another," he replied. The hands went lower, across his ribs and around his middle. The phantom fingers reached past his skin, into his very center, and  _pulled_. Jake's heart rate rose as he took an involuntary step in their direction. With Laurie watching, he shifted his stance to hide the forced movement.

"Why?" Laurie questioned, squinting. "We can finish faster with both of us working on it."

"Spreading out in case he catches one of us works better," he explained, passing a locker to scan around outside before he ventured out. The walls of the shack provided cover from being seen, but they would also allow Myers to sneak up on them if they weren't careful. 

"Jake."

He hesitated, resting a gloved hand on the pallet that leaned within the doorway. Hopefully the small distance between them and the shack's shadowed interior hid the way his fingers dug into the wooden slat. He wanted to pull it down, put some distance between himself and Laurie, but resisted the urge. She wasn't the threat here.

"Don't do anything stupid," was all she said. Jake nodded.

He wouldn't allow the bond to fuck up anyone's chances of escape. It was just another obstacle, like the entity's game of fixing generators and opening gates. Those had never stopped him from surviving. The only way to overcome the bond was to learn how to control it. Attempting to do so outside of a trial hadn't worked. Maybe it would now. He had to try, but if it backfired no one would benefit from being around him if it did.

Outside the shack's walls the wreckers' yard was a sprawl of open space. Passing a hook, he headed between sets of broken parts and up a small hill. He crouched behind an outcropping of rock to search for Myers. He should have been easy to spot, tall enough to tower over the deteriorating cars and clutter, but there was no sign of him. No crows were disturbed by his or the other survivors' passing. However, that wasn't his only option.

That pull was still there, fainter now as if Myers had lost interest, but still tugging at his insides in little static bursts. Concentrating, Jake closed his eyes and followed the draw of it, imagining a fishing line disappearing into dark water. He turned his face to the direction where the line pulled taught. When he opened them, the outline of a tanker was barely visible through the mist. 

With a compass to point him in Myers' direction, Jake could know the killer's location to avoid him or to find him, but a line went both ways. Did Myers feel him struggling on the other end? Were the phantom hands a reel to draw him to the surface?

Jake walked down the hill, stopped to dig in a chest, and continued with a scuffed medical kit in hand. His hold on the line unraveled. Closer and closer, with each step it became harder to resist the urge to break into a run. When the thick vapor filling the air drew back to reveal two derelict buses, he knew they were close enough to be within line of sight because the bond's draw came from every direction.

Laurie finished repairing the generator back in the shack. 

He rounded the front of a bus, passing through a gap, and ran into Meg. Or, more accurately, Meg ran into him. They both jumped back at the near collision.

"On me!" she gasped, already pushing past him to keep sprinting. Myers came around the side of the vehicle just as Jake darted inside the bus. The frame was left open on both sides like a hallway with a pallet leaning up in the middle. Through the windows he tracked Myers passing, only to press backwards against the bus's interior when Myers slowed. His head turned to inspect where Jake hid. 

Jake's own face stared back, framed by the yellow metal of the bus, and the mark burned hot. Jake slapped a hand over it, hissing, and the connection snapped. All he saw was Myers again. He should run, lead the killer away from Meg's tracks, but he was still locked in place. The moment stretched too long. He heard nothing, saw nothing, _felt_ nothing but Myers' presence overcome the bus's wall between them. Jake took a tentative step closer to a window large enough to climb through, until his body bumped against the bus, and the mark abruptly cooled.

Myers moved so fast the only thing Jake could do was gasp as a hand shot out and snatched the front of his jacket.

With immeasurable strength, Myers dragged him through the window, the frame scraping at Jake's lower half as he was lifted into the air. It was awkward, Jake's limbs flailing as he came out the other side. He threw the medical kit at Myers' face and Myers knocked it away without pause. Jake's feet didn't get a chance to touch the grass as he was thrown over Myers' shoulder. Jake automatically struggled, pushing at Myers' back and shoulders, as he was carried away. The arm tight around his middle refused his attempts to wiggle out.

There was none of the usual panic or fear filling his head. The pressure was amplified by the real touch of Myers' body under his, the impression of being surrounded calming despite the situation. He ceased struggling to hang limp. 

He was dropped on a hard, flat surface. The impact made an odd, metallic thump.

Myers had taken him inside the hollow tanker. The rest of the yard was obscured by its grey walls, and he stared up at Myers' mask. Against the green sky above it almost glowed. He brought his knees up, pushing with his heels to scoot away towards the only escape with Myers blocking the stairway. There was an opening created by where metal had rusted away a part of the tanker, but Jake huffed when he realized it was too high up. Though he hadn't actually been injured, the entity's influence kept him unable to stand without help from another survivor. His heart skipped a beat when Myers walked up, grabbed Jake by the collar of his jacket, and dragged him back to the landing between the stairs. Then he stood at the end of the tanker, out of sight for anyone who dared to come and attempt aid.

Jake was the bait.

"You..." Jake trailed off when Myers raised his knife a fraction and his lips were sealed by invisible pressure. Myers wanted him silent. Jake lay there, straining against the force across his mouth, but unable to call out in warning. He could see a gate on one side and the yard on the other. He lay there struggling inwardly for a full minute, but didn't see Laurie, Meg, or Claudette through the mist. He would have to give some sign when he did. He thought of Laurie's twitching arm not stopping him earlier and knew they would still try.

He liked to think they were a strong enough team to be so altruistic, but the truth was the entity didn't want them to leave anyone behind. Even the newest survivor experienced the draw, the near-unnatural need to rescue one another despite the dangers involved. It seemed Myers had figured this out as other killers had before.

His attention shifted back to Myers, whose focus hadn't left Jake once. It was the longest they had been this close without bloodshed outside of heat. His face grew hot as the memories brought forth by the sound of those deep exhales threatened to spill. There was no chemistry to cloud his judgement now. Not for the first time, he wondered what lay under the mask and whether it was as falsely human-looking as the rest of him. He'd only seen his face in parts: the square shape of his jaw, the emotionless line of his lips, the faint glimmer of eyes from below. Even his body was mostly an unknown underneath the rough coverall. Throughout his heat, Myers hadn't taken anything off more than necessary.

Another generator being repaired diverted his study from Myers back to outside.

Claudette was yards away, crouching closer as she looked around with caution. Panicked, Jake willed his lips apart and managed a muffled, wordless shout just as she took the first step into the tanker.

Claudette's backwards startle was the only thing to save her as Myers rushed at her with his weapon. She ran, Myers in pursuit, and Jake began to crawl out of the tanker. Meg was there seconds later, pulling him halfway to his feet. He saw her eyes nearly pop out of their sockets just as he realized Myers' trick.

A knife plunged over Jake's head and struck her chest. She screamed, fingers digging in to clutch under Jake's shoulder. Trapped between their bodies, Jake used both hands to shove her away. His head and back collided with Myers' legs as her warm blood splashed across his face. Meg lurched away, hand over the stab wound, and Jake grabbed behind himself awkwardly until he managed to tangle his hands in Myers' coverall. Myers was unable to go after her as she limped away.

His head was yanked back so sharply his neck popped.

Staring upside down into Myers' mask, Jake glared in triumph at thwarting his intentions. A hand in his hair kept him still as the knife hovered over his face. Jake's eyes crossed as the threat of its pointed tip fractionally lowered.

Meg's pained whimpers faded as she escaped. It was likely Claudette was still nearby and would patch her up. A generator fizzled into life and Myers' mask swung in its direction. Laurie's work again, Jake realized. That was all of them, which meant opportunity for escape. Jake grinned.

It turned into gritted teeth when Myers brought the knife down into his skin, slicing over his eyebrow before it suddenly lifted away again. Myers let go of his hair to clutch at the mask as Jake's suspicion that his wounds would affect Myers became reality. With the killer distracted, Jake took off. He was half-blind as blood ran into his eye. He made it further than he thought he would, back to the buses before he heard Myers breathing behind him. He knocked the pallet over and didn't stop running.

He went for the shack where its walls would protect him if he stayed out of Myers' reach. It was brightly lit by the generator pumping away within, and Jake cut through the building before hesitating at one of the outside corners to see what direction Myers came from. 

He wiped at the blood on his face as he waited, only to realize he was momentarily safe when he heard screaming. Moments later, Meg was on the hook only to be pulled off and Claudette downed instead. She was lifted into the air. Jake's heart dropped as he imagined that knife sinking deep within her body again. He relaxed a little as she went back on the hook. Even if the time they had to save her was halved as she began to struggle, at least she wasn't dead. He edged away from the shack, back in the tanker's direction, and spotted Meg where she crouched behind a large rock by the brightness of her hair. He joined her.

She held the key high in her hand, the amber piece hanging from its ring glowing.

"What does it do?" Jake whispered.

"I can see where he's at," she replied, voice rough. She looked clammy; face nearly as white as Myers' mask. The bloodstain on her shirt slowly grew despite a hasty bandage slapped over the stab wound compounded by the hook puncture on her shoulder. She lowered the key to gesture at where Claudette's aura still resisted the entity's sharp tines. "He's standing there again, just to the left of her. Asshole. Wait. He's moving towards the gate."

"Here," Jake said, removing his scarf and wrapping it tight around her rib cage to help mitigate some of the bleeding. She gave a weak nod in gratitude. Jake remembered his last trial with Myers and regretted giving her a piece of his clothing, but it wasn't like he could take it back. Every second sitting here was a second less for Claudette.

"Open the other gate and I can get her."

"I know where the hatch is," Meg shot back. "It's on the other side of the hill by the shack. Let's go together and then make a break for it."

"How do you know it even works that way?" he asked. He stared at her shaking hands, wondering if it would be better to go alone, but knew Meg would never leave Claudette behind.

"It will!"

When they were within sight of Claudette, Meg in front due to her faster stride despite her injury, Jake slowed as he spotted Myers near the unopened gate. Laurie was running through the obstructions of junkyard scrap and was left trying to keep a tree between them after a misstep allowed Myers to block her from looping around a pile of tires. That wouldn't work for more than seconds with how fast he could move. As Meg pulled Claudette free of the hook, leading her in the direction of the hatch, Jake took a deep inhale.

"Hey!" he shouted. Myers and Laurie noticed him at him at the same time. For a few seconds, Jake was nonplussed what to do next, then Laurie ran. Myers was back on her, his knife strike across her back propelling her until she disappeared between the walls. Instead of continuing to hunt her, Myers began to stalk towards Jake, and he ran too. Meg and Claudette hadn't gotten far enough and Jake slowed. He had to give them more time.

Myers loomed over him when he turned around.

A blow to his middle knocked him backwards. Only Myers' hand on his jacket kept him on his feet.

Jake choked and looked down to see the knife embedded in his stomach.

A flash of heat traveled through his nerves; the coldness left in its wake left him shaking. It didn't hurt yet, but he knew it was coming, like seeing an incoming wave too far from shore. When the knife slid back out, his own blood trailed from its tip, splashing onto the ground between their feet. Wetness quickly drenched the waistband of his pants.

Jake bit down as mindless pain overwhelmed him. Myers grunted as Jake's knees buckled and he sagged against him, no strength left for him to avoid the rough vise of Myers' hand on his bicep. If he felt the agony of Jake's insides as his torn muscles uselessly twitched, he didn't show it. It hurt even worse as Myers hauled him along, following where Meg and Claudette disappeared around the hill. Jake whimpered with every forced step. He used one hand to hold onto his middle and blood flowed over it too quick, almost burning from how hot it felt to his numb fingertips through his glove. The pain became distant, adrenaline kicking in, and Jake managed to get his feet back under him to pull away in counterweight. It was useless, Myers dragging him up the hill even as Jake's boots slipped over the dirt.

Claudette spotted them and cried out for Meg to hurry as she fumbled with the hatch's lock. Jake was released and he sprawled onto his back, banging his head against the ground. His vision spotty, he heard their screams from below as Myers intercepted them. Determined, Jake got on his hands and knees and haltingly crawled to the hill's edge. One second Myers' knife was buried in Meg's back and the next it stabbed through Claudette's throat.

It came clear out the other side, skewering her.

Myers withdrew it and both women dropped to the ground on either side of the hatch. Jake slid down the hill, landing at the bottom with a groan as his stomach tore open wider. Claudette was choking as she tried to hold in all of the blood gushing out of her neck, the whites of her eyes visible as she stared up at Myers standing over her, examining his knife.

Meg's hand darted forward, twisting the key in the lock.

The hatch clicked open, black smoke swirling out in beckoning tendrils. Myers brought his boot down on her hand and Meg shrieked as the bones crunched underfoot. Still, she rolled and used her other hand to reach across the hatch, snag Claudette by the elbow, and pulled her just enough that she fell into the hatch.

Dread filled Jake as Myers focused on Meg. She was trying to push his boot off her hand. He leaned down to pick her up. Jake tried to drag himself forward but fell on his side. Every breath was a horrible wrenching against his wrecked middle. He felt air where it didn't belong, caressing his exposed insides, and felt nauseous. 

Through the bond, Jake at last sensed some hint of emotion seep out of Myers' void of a presence.

He wished he didn't. 

Meg weakly struggled in his grip, kicking at him. She spat at his mask.

Myers stabbed her over and over.

Jake closed his eyes, wanting to block it out, but he could still hear the wet, broken sounds of the knife hitting her body. Her moans ended after the fifth time, but Myers didn't stop. It took a long time for it to fall silent, until only the hum of the open hatch and Myers' too-steady breathing were left. When Jake opened them again her torso was nothing but an annihilated mess as she hung lifeless within his grasp. Myers was coated in it. He dumped her body next to the hatch. Blood and matter— Jake quickly looked away before his brain could try and identify it— splattered off him at the sharp movement.

The weight of Myers' consideration fell on where Jake lay bleeding. One eye of the mask was bisected by a swath of red. He lowered the knife, more drops of gore plopping as they hit the ground.

He could only hope Laurie had opened a gate and would escape.

Even with the hatch so close, Myers wouldn't let him have the option.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes at [my tumblr](https://audiopilot.tumblr.com/post/185486329134/remanence-chapter-3-audiopilot-dead-by).


	4. Chapter 4

Jake shrank back against the hill as Myers advanced and even that smallest movement was torture. If only the earth at his back would open up and swallow him to get away from the dark, foul smell radiating off the approaching killer... yet there was no avoiding him as the hatch door snapped closed. The last traces of its dark smoke fanned out in fast-disappearing wisps. The blood surrounding the hatch was already disappearing, but Meg's body still laid beside it. Thankfully her back was to him, sparing further view of what Myers had done. Jake's eyelids grew heavy as he stared at the pink of Claudette's shirt stretched across Meg's back, at the underside of her sneakers with their worn treads, at the landing of a disturbed crow on one of the nearby barrels— anything to avoid Myers' heavy footsteps coming closer.

Back at the start of it all, Meg had been the first to bolt at even a hint of danger. That fearful person had transformed into a fearless teammate, quick to run headfirst into danger to save any one of them. Jake swallowed past the lump in his throat; she'd sacrificed herself for Claudette while Jake had barely helped the rest of them this trial, too caught up in a problem of his own making. He didn't bother to try and put any pressure on the stab wound splitting open his abdomen. 

Myers' breathing pulled his focus like a magnet and Jake lifted his gaze slowly to meet the empty eye sockets of Myers' mask. Whatever he thought was a complete mystery. Would he stay and watch Jake bleed out or hasten his death with his knife? Not that he liked being stabbed, but Jake wanted this entire mess to be over.

His vision went blurry; the red and blue of Myers' stained coverall melted together into a dripping haze. Like the hatch's smoke it drifted upwards in tendrils that curled in on themselves. Trying to track their sinuous movement left his head spinning. Blinking to dispel it only made the dark holes of the mask grow, yawning wide beyond the mask's limits and, like black mouths, hungrily ate all color away.

Big hands pulled at his body. Jake flopped back onto the ground with a cry as his numb legs refused to support his own weight. He would've laughed if it didn't hurt so much, but the morbid humor of the situation quickly slipped away as Myers picked him up again, the movement accompanied by a lump of viscera sliding off his sleeve and falling onto Jake's jacket.

Meg.

It was Meg, this pink, wet lump that clung to him.

Nausea pooled in his mouth and flipped his stomach. Jake's fingers trembled with the need to get away, but Myers' hold was the only thing keeping him upright. Jake looked at Myers' mask, thankfully static now, and a weak snarl pulled his lips apart as Myers leaned close.

Arms slipped around his back and under his legs to lift him into the air.

"No," growled Jake. He hit at Myers' body with a sudden burst of energy, determined to put up some sort of fight even as it left his vision spotty and his body boneless. Head tipping forward, Jake's forehead rested against the wet, rough coverall as he was arranged like an object, roughly pulled tight to prevent any further struggle. Instead of tossing him over his shoulder, Myers carried him like a child against his chest. The rigid length of the knife pressed along the outside of Jake's thigh like a threat. He could feel Myers' warmth against his face. Jake concentrated on taking steady breaths through his clenched teeth as each step jostled his whole body and triggered sharp resonations of pain. The fetid, coppery scent of blood was overpowering.

Being carried triggered the entity-caused limbo state that kept him conscious and preventing him from dying from blood loss. Usually it had a re-energizing effect that allowed him to wriggle free if the killer wasn't quick enough to hook him, but Jake had no desire to fight his way out, despite his initial protest. Resignation for whatever Myers had in store for him settled like a weighted blanket. Even if he did struggle out of his hold, Myers could follow Jake through the bond no matter how far he ran.

A particularly rough step startled him as his head was dislodged from its spot. Before his eyes shone the pale slip of skin at the bottom of Myers' mask. It was the only thing untouched by carnage. He followed the edge of the disguise up, slightly nervous to see the holes of the mask, but it looked normal again if slightly odd from the severe angle. The flared collar of Myers' coverall tickled against the tip of his nose and he tiled his head sideways to avoid it. He caught where they'd moved to, the muted yellow of the buses not quite hiding one of the gates. It was unopened, all three lights dead.

Laurie was still out there. Jake clenched a useless fist on his pant leg. She would attempt a rescue. Despite her own admonishment about stupidity, that she still lingered spoke loudly of her intentions.

Myers halted by the bus window he had dragged Jake through earlier. The arms around him shifted and, afraid of being thrown to the ground, Jake automatically clung onto Myers with both hands.

"Wait, before you—ah!" Jake's voice broke into the startled sound when Myers' fingers curled in where they cradled his side. It was the same tender spot Myers had grabbed during— Jake shook off the reminder even as it left his mouth dry.

Myers inhaled deeply. For several tense seconds, Jake waited for... well, something. Myers stood still, apparently not bothered by Jake's weight nor where he'd tangled his fingers into his clothing. He easily could have tossed Jake aside but hadn't. 

"I can stand now," Jake offered. "Put me down slowly. Please."

Before he'd finished his sentence, Myers was bending while his arm under Jake's knees withdrew. The one around his back kept him steady as Jake lowered his legs one at a time. Gritting his teeth, Jake awkwardly regained his footing. It still hurt. Sweat prickled under his clothes as the unavoidable stretch of his abdomen tugged at every damaged nerve. But he was no longer so close to dying.

Too many trials had left Jake with intimate knowledge of what that felt like.

The entire time, Myers' body slid against his own. It was disgusting, the mess he was covered in coating Jake's side with a slick sound. Yet he couldn't help but notice the feel of Myers' chest, stomach, and hips as they dragged against him. Even through his clothes, the touch left him far too aware of his own body. 

A warm flush spread from the back of his neck and Jake quickly let go only to accidentally kick something by his foot. It was a medical kit, laying sideways with its white cross warped by a large dent. Jake stared at it, then back up at Myers, back to being motionless.

"You want me to use this?" Jake wasn't able to hide his disbelief.

Myers' head went up and then back down in such a minute move that Jake would have thought he had imagined it. In all their interactions, Myers had never communicated back in a clear way despite obviously understanding what he said. Sure, he reacted to what Jake said or did. But not with any words, implied or not. To see him respond now with an unspoken 'yes' shocked the pervasive pain out his head. A phantom touch tugged his hand down in the kit's direction to further emphasize Myers' intent.

"O-okay."

Rather than reach down, Jake leaned his back against the bus to slide carefully down into a sitting position. He popped open the kit and found a bottle of styptic and an abdominal dressing.

A chill swept through him: it was just what he needed.

Jake sent a cautious glance at Myers, whose attention had drifted to the fog-filled yard, before setting it on the ground beside his leg. In fits and starts, he pulled open his jacket, pausing whenever the pain of his abdominal muscles moving spiked too high. He lifted his shirt and went lightheaded as it peeled away and revealed the puncture wound, edges torn to display the cut layers of yellow fat and red muscle underneath. A fresh surge of blood escaped as what little had congealed ripped off with the fabric. 

At least everything was still inside.

Removing his gore-coated gloves, Jake traced the skin around the edge of the cut, he mentally mapped the length of it to the size of the bandage. It was close, but it should cover the wound okay. First, he had to use the styptic, which would stop the bleeding. It sucked to use but was effective. 

His fingertip dropped too low and Jake choked out a low moan at the jolt even that slight touch caused.

An intense prickling all over his skin alerted him to the return of Myers' attention. 

He bit down on the edge of his shirt both to keep it out of the way and because he knew the next step would go beyond agony. After a quick inhale through his nose, he dumped the styptic powder over his stomach.

Squeezing the bottle so hard the plastic cracked, Jake groaned and chewed on the piece of shirt in his mouth, cotton sticking to his tongue as his eyes watered. His entire abdomen burned like he’d poured acid over himself. He slammed his free hand on the ground, fingers tearing into the dirt as he tried to focus on anything else beyond the styptic gnawing its way under his skin. Jake blinked away the tears threatening to fall only to freeze as he realized Myers had practically teleported on top of him. Even down on one knee, his massive size eclipsed Jake. The reminder of just how much space Myers took up was unwelcome when he was still shaking with pain.

Myers watched as Jake shifted, the phantom touch returning but without target. It brushed against him all over, like the current of a river threatening to sweep him under.

"I can't finish this way," Jake pointed out, waving at the open kit beside him.  "Do you want me to heal or not?"

Myers didn't move an inch.

Jake pressed his lips together to prevent sighing out loud. He glanced down at his stomach. A dark scab already sealed the cut.

At the surface, his nerve endings went numb as the styptic spread to the deeper ache inside his abdomen. It was a strange sensation. The entity's twisting of the human body's limitations meant they could suffer wounds that should have killed them with the medical kits going beyond their benign appearance to work like magic. Even the smaller cut on his face and bump on his head that he'd mostly forgotten about had disappeared. 

Barely visible behind the slope of Myers' shoulder, a crow fluttered down onto a nearby rock with its dark eyes trained on them. Would the entity even allow this? There were times when the killers didn't seem to try so hard to kill the survivors but helping them to heal was another thing entirely. Even if it was a means to catch Laurie, Jake felt more nervous at its possible intervention than Myers hovering over him.

The crow cocked its head from side to side to examine them but otherwise held still. The entity wouldn't dissolve the trial early, too curious and hungry. Its interest was oppressive, too much like the first time Jake and Myers had been alone together.

Myers' shoulder broke his staring contest with the bird as the killer shifted. When Myers reached for his neck, Jake gasped and braced for a chokehold. Instead, Myers' fingertips ran over the bandage hiding his mark. Jake stayed still as he pulled it away. It fluttered down in the scant space between Jake's spread thighs and where Myers' knee was planted. 

Cold air trickled across the newly exposed skin. It didn't hurt. He wondered what it looked like now. Myers examined it closely, leaning even further into Jake's space. This close he could smell something else underneath all the blood, but he didn’t recognize it.

Then Myers pressed his thumb directly on top of the mark.

This time there was no vision of himself.

He couldn't see anything at all. The whispers came out of the darkness, guttural voices scrambling over each other to rise as a thick steam to envelop his brain. They were wordless and yet Jake could tell they urged violence. Pressure built when they clawed outwards. They scraped away the inside of his skull, their demands carving into the bone like a tombstone epitaph. Then it abruptly eased, and he was back in his own body, still trapped under Myers' shadow. Jake's head hurt.

The alien sounds withdrew under his own distant, distraught gasps. Just like in the woods, a wetness drained from his ear above the mark. This time it was worse as Jake knew from the tinny, ringing echo in his ear that something had ruptured. Jake winced as he rubbed at it. If the bond allowed him to see from Myers' eyes, did that mean those terrible sounds were what Myers heard all the time? 

Undeterred, Myers pulled up his mask halfway and leaned closer.

"No way," Jake said, bringing his arms between them. He braced his forearms against Myers’ chest and brought his chin down in an attempt to hide the mark. "I don't want to hear that again."

Myers' weight trapped his forearms between them, and Jake slid further down to avoid him until he was slouched near-horizontally. His still fragile stomach twinged in protest. 

A hot tongue swept along the trail of blood leaking along his neck and Jake shuddered for an entirely different reason when Myers indirectly breathed across his ear.

Myers' mouth closed over the mark, teeth fitting perfectly in place, and Jake cracked open like an egg, the voices rushing back in as the sensation of sliding out of his own head left him disoriented. Where before he had only been within the shadow of Myers' presence, feeling along its edges, it came over him as cold and harsh as an avalanche. 

He was caught in it, falling towards—

Jake regained his footing from his stumble and blew out a loud sigh. Out in the woods, he had to be careful as something minor as a sprained ankle had harsh consequences. After almost a year of living on his own, he spent his idle time exploring the forest around his cabin. He had made it this far and this long, driven until the pavement broke into gravel that then crumbled into dirt roads. He had only stopped when the trees grew so close together that the underbrush thinned into a thick, lush carpet of leaves ruptured by tiny saplings. They climbed their way to the gaps of leaves overhead in desperate bids for sunlight. His cabin, nestled at the edge of the woods, was a dark ship amidst the sea of green. 

The last call from his mother left him wanting to escape even his own home. His brother was getting both promoted and married, falling into what his parents wanted. Even though Jake never wanted to work for his father or a spouse, it was surprisingly bitter news to hear. Some small part of himself was disappointed. Whether at his brother or himself, Jake was unsure, and didn't want to think about it too much.

After putting it off for so long in favor of the thousand projects and demands of living out in the woods, he'd dug up the map of the area and slung his pack over his shoulder to explore. Looking at the living reality and comparing it to the drawn topography of his map was challenging. Translating its birds-eye view to his own, lowly human one took more effort once he was beyond any man-made landmarks to signal his location. He was deeper than ever before, at the end of the trail, and the heavy, leaden feeling low in his gut still followed him. 

The quiet buzz of life and the comfort of being alone in the forest was grounding. The soft thumps of his boots through the brush was loud over the trickle of flowing water as his path took him alongside a shallow creek down the incline. The white flash of a spiderweb cut above the creek as the sunshine grew yellow with late afternoon. Strangely, there were no visible insects. No gnats, butterflies, or bees to hover around the colorful wildflowers. Sweat gathered under his scarf as the heat grew at his back and scalp. Jake loosened it, un-sticking it from where his hair had grown too long. Maybe he should let it grow out more instead of awkwardly snipping at it in his small mirror. Turning his head, Jake viewed the side of the steep hill and its treeline overhead.

His heart jumped when he saw something at the corner of his eye.

Jake half-turned to look back over his shoulder. He swore he'd seen a figure, but no one stood on the path.

The bend was too far for them to have ducked behind the curve of the rise. Down into the fall of the creek the vegetation was undisturbed. Still, he couldn't shake the sense that someone had been there, silently following. Walking faster, Jake stumbled over a stone and fell to his knees. His ankle throbbed.

Something was clamped around it. Curved metal... a bear trap?

Even as he stared in disbelief, the pain of its sharp teeth followed a steady flow of blood to stain the ground red, bright under the sunlight. As he struggled, the sky darkened, daylight cooling and the green grass silvered by the light of a sudden moon.

His fingers slipped over the slick teeth of the trap. Jake chewed on the soft skin inside his own mouth to distract from the way they dug into his skin. If they passed the muscle down to the bone, he would have to drag himself back to—to where?

His gut twisted as fog crept around him. The summer trail with its flowers was displaced by the remains of a stripped forest, trees falling into cut stacks and brick walls closing around him. The trap refused to release his ankle and Jake yanked on it in frustration. The springs were coiled too tight, flecks of rust and grit sticking to his skin. Maybe if he had something for leverage, he could pry the jaws apart, but the grass around him was withered and bare.

Boots stepped forward into his vision and Jake's pulse skipped.

He gradually lifted his head.

The cold night hour backlit a person, masked and huge, standing over him. They held a blade, steel coated with fresh blood. Something about them was familiar.

"I know you," Jake blurted. 

The hand without a weapon touched his face, fingers trailing over the curve of his cheekbone. The touch left his skin tight and tingling like a fresh sunburn. Beyond the mask was something terrible; despite the darkness obscuring the man's face, Jake knew he didn't want to see what was underneath. 

As if hearing the terrified thought, the hand left Jake's face to pull back the mask. It peeled away, tendrils sticking in long white ropes that sagged where they connected to... Jake wanted to call it a tunnel though such a thing was not possible. As he peered into it a sudden jolt struck through him like he was standing at the edge of a cliff and the urge to jump had popped into his head. Jake quickly dropped his gaze to the mask as it fell on the ground instead of the thing that should have been a face.

The white mask bulged with primary colors, lips in a wide smile under a clown-like red nose.

The forest disappeared. He was in a house and his ankle was free of the trap, his hands clean and too pale. 

Jake picked up the mask. Without knowing why, he put it on.

It partially blocked the edges of his vision as he followed a scattered trail of clothes into the room of a beta girl. She brushed her hair, half-naked in the soft glow of a bedroom lamp. Her brown hair was dark against the lace curtains as she peered at her own reflection. The room smelled like sex, beta pheromones coating everything like a layer of dust that emanated from the damp, rumpled sheets of the bed.

When she noticed him, she quickly covered her bare chest as she turned away from the mirror.

"Michael!"

Her surprise became pain as he drove a kitchen knife into her stomach, her side, her chest, whatever he could reach. It was quick but hard work. Sometimes her body easily gave into the stab, sometimes he hit bone and the shock reverberated up his wrist as he had to yank the knife roughly back out with a meaty squelch. With every swing he watched its silver color become eclipsed by more and more red. When she stopped screaming, collapsing on the floor, he watched her go limp. Her eyes were empty, all earlier emotion bleeding into the growing pool of blood. 

He turned away—

_I'm not Michael._

Jake surfaced from underneath the heavy weight of the vision only to be thrown back under by more of them. They flitted past, too quick for him to recognize, until one lingered long enough that he was—

crouched behind a low wall, nursing his own wounds, as Dwight was caught for the third time. He helplessly watched as a meat hook was forced through his body. Dwight's scream was overshadowed by the drop of the entity from above, tines rotating to skewer him from all directions. When his body went slack and began to dissolve, Jake was glad it wasn't him as flashes—

of the campfire reflecting off Laurie's face and—

sunlight hitting the fishpond of his family's estate. The refracted light twisted on the ceiling of his room as he sweated through the end of his first heat. He was still shaking from it as Jake watched his mother's blank expression turn to sadness when his presentation was announced. His insides twisted with shame. Being an omega only meant one thing. A gentle hand squeezed his shoulder and he followed it up into the face of his beta caretaker. Her worn, sympathetic face sagged, twisting and tearing apart into a swarm of moths circling—

the light illuminating where his brother tried to catch insects with a jar. Over and over Daniel slapped his hand over its open mouth until he caught one. Seo-yun, their newest caretaker, had shown them how to catch fireflies this way last week. Rather than watch them float within the confines of the glass, Daniel smiled as he pinched whatever he caught between his fingers. He pulled off their wings to drop them in the dirt. Jake twisted a hand into his shirt as he watched them crawl in frenzied circles. His brother called his name, holding the cup out to Jake expectantly and Jake grabbed it. Without hesitating, he smashed it across his Daniel's head. The glass shattered, cutting them both, but, while his brother began to cry, Jake silently watched his own blood fall in droplets—

_I don't want to see this._

The thought bubbled up, creating dreamlike ripples that distorted his brother's tearful, bleeding face.

He was on his back, staring up at Michael— at Myers, mind blank with shock.

"What- what was that?" Jake demanded even as he realized that some of the strange, dreamlike visions had been his own memories. And Myers' too, of killing his sister like Laurie had recounted.

It was eerily similar to how the entity could invade their minds whenever it wanted. Except Jake had seen inside Myers' own mind at the same time, no matter how short. The bond. It had to be a side effect of the stupid, warped bond. 

Myers was observing him, and Jake avoided thinking about what had been under that mask in his head. He could see Myers' mouth; he knew it couldn't really be  _that_. Myers tipping his head marginally was a small, deliberate movement. He didn't know what it meant. 

Why had those been the things he'd shared? He had buried the memory of his brother deep, the first of the many fissures splitting him from his intended life. Was is it the violence? Or that he'd hurt his own family... scarcely similar to what he'd seen of Myers' murder of his sister. The sight of blood felt too close to be anything but intentional. Whether Myers searched for it or Jake had offered it up, he knew one thing.  _I'm not like you_.

Myers pulled his mask back down and stood. Apparently unfazed by the entire thing, he scanned the surrounding yard.

Jake could freak out about it later. There was still a trial to get through. Propping himself back up, it took conscious effort to ignore Myers as he ripped open the dressing, pulled up his shirt, and applied it. He ran his palms over the edges to make sure it stuck. There was no delusion that Myers was acting out of any altruistic intentions by letting him heal. He wanted to lure Laurie from her hiding spot and didn't want Jake to bleed out. After using Jake as bait before, it was obvious he would do it again. 

After all this time, she had stayed. She had to realize there was no way to get them both out unscathed. When Jake got back up, he fumbled to straighten his clothes, thinking hard about his options. He doubted he could get away from Myers; the closest pallets were in shattered pieces and the killer hadn't let him get out of his lunge radius since the hatch's closure.

Beyond Myers, he spotted a face watching them from the tanker.

Laurie was right there. She pointed back towards where the other gate was on the opposite side of the yard. He couldn't see it through the mist, but it must be open. She had come back for him. Jake willed himself not to react, face blank as he looked between the two.

He had to keep Myers attention on him.

Before he could second guess himself, Jake tugged on Myers' arm with both hands and ignored the wet transfer of blood. He couldn't help the flinch when Myers' bare hand covered both of his own, but this time he wasn't forced to see or hear anything strange. Only the press of Myers' awareness meeting his own. Myers didn't have the same callouses Jake had earned from living in the woods, skin smooth against the knuckles of Jake's hands. 

They were dislodged and Myers flipped his right hand over so that his palm faced upwards. Myers' middle finger found the almost invisible scar that bisected the edge of it beneath his thumb. It was the scar from the glass jar. The soft touch made his heart skip a beat. 

Suddenly Myers brushed him away to stalk around the end of the bus that faced the tanker. 

"That's it?" Jake asked, hurrying to follow. Did he know Laurie was there? 

He had to keep him from finding her. 

"We could do it again." 

Myers stopped, head turning, and Jake swallowed the need to take back the words. Laurie edged out from behind the tanker. She approached, expression hard and resolute. 

"You— you liked it last time, right?"

Tilting his chin up, Jake showed off the curve of his neck where the bond marked his throat. It felt a little stupid, but it actually worked, Myers no longer focused on the tanker as he took a step closer.  

"Here," Jake said and gently took Myers' hand that wielded his weapon. Raising it up to his face, Jake ignored the bloody knife so close to his neck and pressed his lips to the back of his hand. He opened his mouth to exhale wetly against the warmth of Myers' skin, letting the edge of his teeth drag softly over a knuckle, tasting iron and salt. His fingers closed around the knife's hilt.

Laurie was right behind him. The sharp glass in her hand winked as she raised it.

Jake yanked the knife down as hard as he could as she stabbed Myers in the side. It was the only thing preventing Myers from stabbing Laurie as he whipped around. His hand smashed into Jake's jaw, knocking Jake back a step and inadvertently giving him the ability to pull the knife free. Jake forced away the feeling of glass in his own side as Laurie shoved it deeper with audible effort. Myers grabbed at Laurie and got a lock of her hair as she ducked. It ripped free from her scalp, allowing her to jump out of the way of a fist aimed at her head.

"Run!" she shouted. Jake shook his head, trying to ignore the pain of a wound that he knew wasn't his own. The knife was a heavy temptation in his hand. 

Too many crows screeched, whirling above the three of them. They seemed to multiply with every pass, until there were a thousand wings flapping to make the very air hum. Laurie was screaming something, but all Jake could hear was his own heaving breath. Ignoring the chaos, Myers managed to catch Laurie's shoulder, pulling her off her feet with how violently he wrenched her close. She tore at his side, trying to get the glass where she'd embedded it in Myers' body. His other hand shot out to grip Jake's forearm and began to pull him forward. 

"No," moaned Laurie, switching to punching at whatever part of Myers she could reach without effect. 

He was going to stab Laurie if Jake didn't do something. 

Jake twisted his wrist to angle the knife away. He barely noticed the sharp tug of something snapping inside his arm as it punctured his skin. Myers dragged him fully into it before noticing. He abruptly let go and Jake swayed. The crows went silent. Or maybe he couldn't hear them anymore. He could see most of it was buried inside his chest. It didn't even really hurt.

"Jake?"

Two faces stared at him, one human and shocked and one inhuman and emotionless. 

"Ha," Jake wheezed out a single laugh, grinning back as a black cascade of feathers fell around them. He was going to die and there was no way Myers could stop him. Laurie could escape. 

Myers reached out and tore the knife free despite Laurie's harsh, "Don't!"

It sliced through him, turning him inside out.

Then there was only darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WOW, it has been a while since my last update! I had this chapter (mostly) done a while ago but made some changes in between working on other fics. I also moved twice this summer and traveled a bit in between so it was not me just procrastinating, haha. ๑•́ㅿ•̀๑) ᔆᵒʳʳᵞ


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